On the Origin of Coulrophobia, the Fear of Clowns
by Jebbifurzz
Summary: One-shot, inspired by "Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie".  Sam's fear of clowns is very deep-seated, to the extent of seeming to be the result of a traumatic experience.  This is the story of that experience, tied into SPN's overarching plot.


To those of you awaiting the next chapter of my Conan fic, I am very sorry that I was writing this one-shot in my free time today. After seeing the latest episode of Supernatural, _Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie_, this kind of just exploded out of my brain and onto my computer. I hope it makes enough sense in the context of the Supernatural universe.

* * *

><p>The little boy tugged on his brother's sleeve. "Dean, I don't like it here."<p>

"Well tough luck, Sammy," Dean shot back. "Dad's gonna be working for the next week, and I sure as hell ain't watchin' you all that time. I need my space, man."

"But Dean..." Sam's eyes filled with tears, and he instantly turned to the ground in an attempt to hide it. "Dean, I'm scared."

Dean started laughing. "Seriously?" he scoffed. "Sam, you're seven years old, and this is a freakin' kids' pizza joint. The worst that can happen is some fat kid steals your tickets."

Sam's hands were trembling. "But..." He knew Dean wouldn't listen. They never did. He didn't even know what it was that scared him. All he knew was that Dean would drop him off, he would see the clowns, and then he would wake up, unharmed. But it would feel like something bad had happened. Something very bad.

Sam looked up, only to see Dean backing toward the door. "I'll pick you up in the evening, okay Sammy?" Dean called out as he spun out the door, off to do whatever it was Dean did. Dean things.

Sam took a seat at an elongated table and glanced around the area. Why was he so scared? It was, after all, just a place for kids to play... Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Sam, you're back," a soft voice cooed.

He turned around. It was the clowns. No no no no... The clowns... It meant something bad was going to happen.

The other clown gently took his hand, and helped him up. "Don't look so scared, Sam. You know we would never hurt you."

Sam nodded. He knew they wouldn't. But there was something... Something really bad... Something he was really scared of...

"Poor thing, you must be hungry," the first one remarked, fussing over Sam's hair. "How about we go get you something to eat? Would you like that?"

Sam nodded, and allowed himself to be led away by the two.

* * *

><p>"Wait, Dad" – Dean held the phone closer to his ear – "you mean the thing that killed mom?"<p>

"It might not be him, Dean, but it's definitely his work."

"W-what is it doing?"

His father paused. "Well, I'm not exactly clear on that yet. And it doesn't even make sense why he's in this town. Your uncle Bobby can't find anything special about this place in particular, but apparently it was special enough for them to set up here, regardless of the fact that there are at least two hunters in town."

Dean beamed. So he was a hunter. It felt great to hear Dad say it. "Do you need me to do anything?"

"No no, not yet. I'm still gathering information. You just sit tight with Sam. If he gets bored, you kids feel free to go to the arcade, or to get some food, or whatever. I'll talk to you kids later."

* * *

><p>"Good boy," she said softly, stroking Sam's hair.<p>

Sam barely heard the words as he hungrily lapped up the warm, red liquid. This... For some reason, he was scared of it, but he liked it. He wanted it. He _needed_ it.

"I'll get you some more, pumpkin," she assured him, noticing he had finished the bowl. She walked away and disappeared behind the counter.

"So Sam," the other woman prompted, taking the opportunity to remove her green wig. She set it on the table, shaking off the beads of sweat that had collected in her dark ringlets. "How are your father and brother doing?"

"They're okay, I guess," Sam admitted. "Dad won't tell me why we're still here, though. We were going to leave a week ago, but then all of a sudden Dad said he wanted to stay longer."

The woman shared a knowing smile with her companion, who was returning with a fresh bowl. "Well," she reasoned slyly, "maybe someone wanted your daddy to stay a while longer, so they left your daddy some clues to pique his interest..."

"That sounds like him," Sam agreed, before descending on his second bowl in a frenzy.

"Easy there, big boy," she laughed, rubbing his back. "We don't want you to get a stomach ache."

* * *

><p>"Hey, Sam! You all done there, kiddo?"<p>

Sam turned around in his seat. No. It was him. This was when things got bad. He remembered now. First the clowns, and then this guy...

"Now Sam," said the man with the yellow eyes, "you're not going to tell daddy about any of this, right?"

Sam stared back at the man, eyes wide with fear.

"Of course not," the man answered with a smile. He reached out to touch Sam's temple, and then the world went black.

* * *

><p>Sam slowly opened his eyes. Where... He suddenly leapt to his feet. Where was he?<p>

He was seated at an elongated table, right where Dean had left him. Had he fallen asleep here? One of the clowns passed by, flashing a smile at him. Sam pushed himself away from the table, preparing to run, his heart racing. There was something bad about the clowns. Something very bad. He didn't know what it was, but he knew that when he saw the clowns, something bad was going to happen.

* * *

><p>"So you're a hunter too, huh?" The man eyed John up and down. "Alright, I believe you. You here about those omens?"<p>

John nodded.

"How long you been in town?"

"About three weeks."

The man burst out laughing. "Three weeks! Aww, that's cute. You must be a beginner, then."

"Well, I'm still trying to figure out what we're dealing with here," John argued through clenched teeth. "I don't wanna make any stupid moves."

"Hey, I'm sorry, man. I didn' mean it like that." He leaned in closer. "But me and the boys have pretty much got this thing all figured out. I'm the only one of us here in town though, so I'd be happy to have someone covering me. What d'you say? Want me to let you in on the details?"

John nodded.

"Alright. First off, what we're dealing with here is demons. I'll run you through how we're going to get rid of 'em in a minute, 'cause that ain't the interesting part. What's interesting is this: all those omens? They're all dead ends. Fake leads. The way it looks, the demons set all of that up to keep us busy, while they get up to the real stuff under our noses."

"What are they really after?"

"As far as we can tell," the man continued, "there ain't more than two or three demons max, but there's a lot of energy concentrated here, especially with those omens set up to distract us. This here's a stealth mission, a really important one, and they came to this town for just one person."

"Who?"

"Ah, well, that's the tricky part. Our main bookworm-type guy has done tons of research, but the one thing he found don't make much sense at all. The only thing that matches up with all of this is a passage he found on an ancient Egyptian tablet, that says something about creating a monster for the falling star, from among the ranks of men."

"That... certainly is cryptic," John agreed.

The man shrugged. "But the reason prob'ly don't matter all too much. You know about vampires, and werewolves, right?"

John nodded.

"Yeah, we figure it's something like that, since it talks about making a man into a monster, ya' know?" He took a deep breath. "Alright, so lemme tell ya how to kill 'em."

* * *

><p>"No, Dean, there's something bad," Sam pleaded.<p>

"Good God, Sammy, are we gonna do this every day?" Dean asked, mildly irritated. "What's bad, Sam?"

"The clowns," Sam whispered. "There's something bad about the clowns."

Dean stared at his brother for a moment. "You've gotta be freakin' kidding me, Sam. Clowns?" Dean looked past Sam to where one of the clowns was handing a young girl a balloon. "Don't tell me, you're afraid of clowns?"

"I'm afraid of what happens when I see them," Sam attempted to explain.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Alright, Sammy. How about this: I'll stay here with you today, and I'll show you that there is nothing dangerous about clowns. Then you'll leave me alone the rest of the week, okay?"

Sam nodded, immediately latching onto his brother's arm as they walked into Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie.

* * *

><p>"Sam! You're back!" one of the clowns said happily. Her eyes turned to Dean. "Oh, is this your brother?"<p>

Sam nodded silently, tightening his grip on Dean's arm.

She smiled. "Well if you boys need anything, you be sure to let us know, okay?" With that, she walked away.

"Dang, Sammy," Dean breathed. "There's no reason to be afraid of a clown like _that_! Heck, I'll go play with her if you don't."

Sam was silent, watching the clown intensely.

"Geez, Sammy, what am I gonna do with you?"

* * *

><p>"Now now, don't you boys wanna play with the other kids?" They were being addressed by a middle-aged woman, most likely a mother of one of the children there.<p>

"Ah, he's a bit shaken up right now, ma'am," Dean replied, gesturing toward the child attached to his arm. "And anyway, we don't have any tokens, so..."

The woman immediately adopted a face Dean recognized as that of a concerned mother. "Oh, well..." She reached into her purse and took out a five dollar bill. "Go play some games on me, okay?"

Dean took the bill, a wide smile spreading across his face. "Sure, thanks ma'am!" He gave Sam a tug, and he started pulling him toward the token machine. As Dean retrieved the five dollars worth of tokens, they turned and made their way toward the games.

"There's something wrong," Sam whispered again.

"Sam, that woman wasn't even a clown," Dean protested. "Are you gonna tell me you're afraid of moms now, too?"

"I think the clowns did that."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Ugh, so now the clowns are in cahoots with the soccer moms? Here." He separated Sam from his arm and dropped half of the tokens into Sam's palm. "Let's just try to relax, okay? I'm gonna go do that motorcycle game, and you can play whatever you want. If you get scared at all, I'll be right here, okay?"

Sam nodded hesitantly, and watched as Dean seated himself on the makeshift motorcycle, and slipped his tokens into the machine. Sam started walking around, looking at his options for games to play. Just try to relax.

"There you are, Sammy!" the clown said, appearing before him. "I was worried I had lost you."

Sam whirled around, desperately hoping that Dean was still there, riding the motorcycle. He wasn't.

"Oh, I think your brother needed some air," the clown explained, understanding Sam's train of thought. "Don't worry. I'm sure he's fine. Now let's get you something to eat, okay?"

Sam's ears pricked up at the last sentence, and he found himself nodding.

The clown smiled. "Good boy." She took Sam's hand, and led him away.

* * *

><p>"Alright, this seems to be the place," he whispered to John. "Now, they don't have much defence – it's only two of 'em – so they won't be too difficult to kill. But this mission of theirs is obviously important, so I reckon that if we take too long, reinforcements are sure to arrive." He cocked his gun. "The demons are small fry, so we'll take care of them first. Just leave the exorcism to me, and you make sure they don't stop me. Once they're down, we go after the monster, shooting it with everything we've got. Something's bound to kill it. Then we do a quick clean up, and get the heck out of dodge."<p>

"How will we know who the monster is?" John wondered.

"Process of elimination," the man replied. "We've tracked the omens back to here, so this is definitely their base of operations. And consequently, I've been told that two of the female workers here started acting differently around the same time as the start of the omens. Here."

He tossed a folded paper to John. "Those are our two demons right there, I'm sure of it. So the only one in there besides the two of them will be our monster."

John nodded, committing the images of the two women to memory. "Alright, let's do this."

* * *

><p>"That's it, good boy," the woman said soothingly, rubbing Sam's shoulder reassuringly as he drank his fill, his hungry mouth completely submerged within the liquid.<p>

Everything happened quickly then, and Sam wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings. But a bright light suddenly flashed, and then there was the smell of smoke. The hand stroking his shoulder stopped as the woman stood up, most likely to investigate the problem.

After a moment, the automated sprinklers turned on, raining water down upon the room. The two women started wailing, falling to the floor and clutching at their skin like they were being burnt. Sam looked up from his bowl, just in time to see two men burst into the room, one of them chanting in another language.

They remained in the doorway, so they didn't see him, and he couldn't get a good look at them. But whatever the chanting man was doing... He shivered. The women's cries were becoming increasingly pained, and he knew it was the chanting. It was horrible. Sam thought it would last forever. Then, with one last blood-curdling scream, two billowing clouds of black smoke tore themselves from the women's mouths, leaving them unconscious on the ground.

The two men moved cautiously into the room, and for a brief moment, they passed under a light. He couldn't be sure, but one of them looked like...

"Dad?" he called out uncertainly. The red liquid was all over his face, and he could feel it dripping down his neck.

The two men froze, noticing him for the first time. There was no answer.

After a moment, one of the men pointed his gun at Sam. "I'm sorry, Winchester, but he needs to die."

Sam closed his eyes, and then he heard the loud bang.

But... There was no pain...

Sam opened his eyes. The man who was going to shoot him was lying on the ground, shot in the head, and the other one was on the floor, burying his face in his hands. He walked toward the man, and stopped a few metres in front of him.

"Dad?" he asked again. There was no mistaking it. It was his father. But still there was no answer. "Dad, I'm scared. Why are you crying?"

Suddenly, his father's arm lunged forward, pointing his gun directly at Sam's head.

Sam's entire body trembled in fear, and he sank weakly to his knees. "D-dad, I'm scared," he said again. "What's happening?" Tears started flowing freely down his face. "Wh-where's..." He choked back sobs. "Dad, where's Dean?"

The gun clicked, and Sam grew silent. He simply sat pitifully on the floor, his body shaking convulsively, as he cried without noise. "I... I love you dad," he squeaked, closing his eyes tightly, breathing rapidly.

The gun clicked again. Sam breathed harder. He felt like he wasn't getting enough air. Like he was drowning. He needed to breathe harder, and harder, and... And then...

* * *

><p>"This is just a nightmare, Sam. None of this is real, so there is nothing to be scared of."<p>

It was, wasn't it? Just a nightmare... The world became black and numb. Sam couldn't open his eyes. He felt his body flung over his father's shoulder, and then carried out of the room.

There was the familiar creak of the car door. He felt himself face down on the car seat, and something coarse tightening around his hands... It felt like rope... His wrists tied... behind his back... There was a click... the car locked from the inside...

And... And he... He... He fell into blackness.

* * *

><p>"Oh man," Dean yawned. "I can't believe I fell asleep in that stupid place. And to think Sammy didn't even try to wake me up..." He glared at his brother, sleeping face down under a blanket in the back seat.<p>

John smiled weakly. "I'm glad you two were able to have some fun..."

Dean narrowed his eyes dubiously. "Oh yeah, what happened to that case you were working on? Did you get the monster?"

John's eyes drifted to the rear view mirror, looking nervously at the unconscious Sam.

Dean noticed, and turned to look at Sam. "Dude, he's out cold," he assured his father. "Tell me about the monster! Did you kill it?"

"N-not exactly..."

"What?" Dean frowned. "What the heck happened?"

"I..." John took a deep breath. "I was hesitant..."

"C'mon, dad," Dean scolded him. "You know you can't let anything stop you from gankin' a monster. You leave 'em alive, and they'll just keep killing, 'cause that's what a monster does."

"That's true," his father agreed. He glanced once more at the image of Sam in his mirror. "If the monster becomes a problem, then it will be our responsibility to kill it," he decided with a grave face.

Dean smiled eagerly. "Yes sir!"

Sam blinked slowly, gradually waking from his nightmare. He didn't remember much of it. Only that it was terrifying. He noticed a pile of napkins strewn across the floor of the car, taken from Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie. Each napkin had the image of a clown's face in the bottom corner.

Sam felt an overwhelming sense of dread filling his heart. No. He didn't like clowns. When the clowns came, something bad would happen. Something very, very bad...


End file.
